Monday, November 30, 2015

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG Soundtrack Impressions


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WARNING: The following its a preview of a soundtrack for YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG and contains titles for music from the game. These titles may or may not spoil or hint at elements of the game. If you don't want to know anything, not even a song title, don't read this preview
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The developer of the upcoming Wii U rpg YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG recently let me listen to a preview of the soundtrack for the game. Note: this was only a portion of the game's soundtrack. And there was one song on the soundtrack, Break Away: Michael's Theme, that did not work for me. I'm not sure if it was my computer or what. I did listen to the recent of the soundtrack, though, and here are my impressions of it.

The YIIK soundtrack, so far, is a mix of electronic, vocal, and orchestrated sounding material. There is one tune that came back into the other songs a lot, but otherwise, the music varied quite a bit. Personally, I prefered the slower songs in the soundtrack. I wasn't a big fan of the stranger music nor the vocal soundtracks. The slow songs were extremely well done though.

Here are my impressions of a few of the songs I liked:

The Overworld theme is definitely one of my favorites. It reminded me a bit of a Final Fantasy overworld theme, while also keeping its own unique identity. I think its going to be a lot of fun to listen to while traveling across the overworld.

Cat Chase is a really good lighthearted song that I'm very interested in seeing where its placed in the game.

The Theme of Sammy Pak is a very slow song that reminds me of something out of Earthbound. It also seems to have a sort of romantic vibe to it. Perhaps there's a bit of a Disney music quality to it too.

 Thinking of You Whenever You Are is just a nice guitar riff of a song. There isn't much to it, but there doesn't need to be. Its an excellent example of the wonderful slow music in this game so far.

Those are the highlights of the soundtrack for me, but none of the music in YIIK is terrible. I wasn't fond of the vocals in Puzzle Pieces, but otherwise, I have no major complaints with this soundtrack so far. You can tell that a lot of time and effort is being put into the soundtrack. If as much time and effort is being put into the actual game (and it appears that a lot of both is), then we should be in for a treat whenever YIIK comes to the Wii U.

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Thank you to the developer, Ackk Studios, for letting me check out the soundtrack. I can't wait to play the game!

The YIIK logo was taken from here on google.

I'll be back on Friday!

Monday, November 23, 2015

I'm Not Thankful For Animal Crossing New Leaf's Harvest Festival

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Not all change is for the better. Animal Crossing: New Leaf is, in my opinion, the best Animal Crossing game in the series. That said, there is one holiday in the game that I absolutely do not like at all.

I don't like the Harvest Festival.

I use to love the Harvest Festival in previous Animal Crossing games. It was so much fun.

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Basically, in previous Animal Crossing games, you had to hunt down a Turkey named Franklin. Franklin hid all over your town. It was like an advanced version of hide and seek. That turkey could really hide! Once you found him, you had to keep taking him knives and forks in order to get him to give you the entire Harvest set. Doesn't necessarily sound fun right? Well it was a ton of fun. One of the big things that made it fun was all of Franklin's funny dialogue. He was really nervous turkey!

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I always looked forward to playing the Harvest Festival on Thanksgiving. It was just one more great thing about the holiday.

And then...

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Nintendo changed it for New Leaf. And they ruined it.

Now, I don't usually like to talk bad about Nintendo. I love Nintendo. I love Animal Crossing. But...this was a huge mistake!

The Harvest Festival in New Leaf has Franklin as a cook now. He's trying to get you to make an alternative meal for Thanksgiving. But you have to collect a bunch of stuff before the day: fruit, mushrooms, fish, and give it to him. So the Harvest Festival has been turned into a collect-a-thon now and the reward for doing all this work is nowhere as good as the reward you use to get. You can buy all of the Harvest stuff at the Nooklings store now. Thank goodness I suppose.

This new version of the Harvest Festival is just awful. Its not fun at all.

I really miss how the holiday use to be.

I hope Nintendo brings back that old version of the holiday in the next game. I know they didn't have it in this one because you're the mayor and you wouldn't invite the turkey to town to be eaten and neither would Isabelle. The solution in my opinion? They could have had someone anonymously invite him to town! It could have been left a mystery.

Anyway, I never play this new Harvest Festival. I always just turn City Folk for the Wii on and play the old hide and search version. Thank goodness the Wii U plays Wii games!

Have you played the new Harvest Festival on New Leaf? What do you think of it? Please let me know in the comments!

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All of the above pictures are from google here!

Friday, November 20, 2015

Its Time to Go to the (Nintendo Badge) Arcade

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For about a week or so now, I've been addicted to Nintendo's latest 3DS app, Nintendo Badge Arcade. The app, basically, lets you get badges from a crane game and then place the badges of your 3DS bottom screen menu. Most of the badges do nothing. They are basically for decoration. There are some badges that'll take you to the eshop or things like that, but even those are just something to make your 3DS look cool. The crane game isn't always free though. You can win free turns via a practice crane game or the bunny in charge will give you free turns occasionally, but if you want to play the crane game a lot...you have to use real money.

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I haven't used real money yet though. I say yet because the temptation is always there to use real money. There are a lot of really cool badges and you can't always get as many of them as you want.

In fact, the crane game can be a little frustrating sometimes. It'll pick up something and then drop it. Kind of like a real crane game, you can have a hard time getting exactly what you want or anything at all. Sometimes, you do get really lucky though and accidently push some badges down into the hole to get them.

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But Nintendo Badge Arcade can feel like a ripoff sometimes. There have been days when I'll use my free turn and get nothing. Thats another reason I hesitate using money on this app. I worry that I'll use money to get some badges, won't get any at all, and there goes my money. Sure, five turns only costs $1 but still, a dollar is a dollar.

Nintendo Badge Arcade isn't for everybody. Not everyone will like putting the badges on their menu or like the crane game and how it feels like it cheats you sometimes. And certainly there will be people who NEVER use money on the app. I'm not sure if I'll be one of those or if I'll eventually give in and pay for some badges.

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Yes, Nintendo Badge Arcade is a gimmick. Yes it can be a ripoff. But its also a very addictive app and I play it every day. Oh and I have gotten some cool badges, such as a Triforce badge, some Animal Crossing badges, and some good Mario badges. I also like how you can put the badges directly on folders if you want or design them like you see above.

Nintendo Badge Arcade is free to download right now on the 3DS eshop. Be warned though, you may get addicted to it!

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All of the above pictures were taken from google here.

I'll be back on Monday! There will be no blog entry on Friday next week